The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  The ambassador was correct, of course, and Ipid knew it. This was no different than dealing with an untrustworthy supplier, corrupt manager, or two-timing partner. No matter how much they hurt you, no matter how much you hated them, there were protocols to follow. It was business. As soon as it became personal, you lost. Of importance were the motives and the damage done. And those were not discovered through fuming. Yet this betrayal was somehow so much more.

  “Refreshments?” Ambassador an’ Pmalatir asked when he was settled. He spoke as if the earlier discord had never existed. “It is such a hot day, I could use something to cool my tongue. Chancellor Kavich knew that I prefer punch in the summer months – something with fruit and a sweet wine would please me more than you know.”

  Ipid gestured to the bottle in the corner. Eia frowned but rose and poured two fingers of brandy into a snifter. “My lord?” she motioned toward Ipid with the bottle.

  “Might as well.”

  With a glib smile, she filled a second glass and delivered them, gliding smoothly around the table before returning to her seat where she sat with her legs crossed beneath her.

  “So you admit that you are conspiring against me?” Ipid asked when he had his glass. There was no point in retreating now, especially since it would only look as if he were doing it because the ambassador had told him to.

  “Certainly,” Ambassador an’ Pmalatir responded, “I am conspiring with my every breath to lure your lovely wife to my bed.” He looked toward Eia and winked. She attempted scorn, but her amusement was clear. “But if you are going to take heads for that, there will be a remarkable fall in the need for hats here in the Unified Kingdoms, let me assure you. Especially, if you allow her to continue dressing like that.” His eyes ate Eia, lingering on the space at the top of her chest where the tight-fitting dress pressed her white breasts up to reveal their curve. The rest of the sleeveless, shimmering mauve creation clung to her in a way that had never been seen in the Kingdoms.

  “You know what I mean,” Ipid snapped, tired already of the ambassador’s games.

  “What other conspiracy could I have planned against you, Lord Chancellor? I swore only a few days ago that I would aid you in your attempt to rule. My nation and yours are aligned by our commitment to the invaders and desire to see Liandria undone. Given that you are one of the very few men in these Kingdoms to support those same goals, I can only think that we should be staunch allies. Why would you think otherwise?”

  “Can there be any other reason for you to meet with Eia in the middle of the night? For you to give your reports to her? For you to withhold them from me?”

  “I thought I’d just explained why I was meeting with your lovely wife in the middle of the night.” The ambassador looked around the room in surprise. “I know, Lord Chancellor, that you did not often take lovers, but surely you know what a man and woman are typically doing when they meet in the middle of the night.”

  Ipid rolled his eyes and ground his teeth. The ambassador was playing with him. “No more of your games. What is your report? What is happening that I need to know about? Eia won’t tell me anything, and I will wait no longer.”

  “He is such fun,” Ambassador an’ Pmalatir said to Eia with a wicked smile. “How do you keep yourself from doing this all day?”

  “Stop it, Vontel,” Eia commanded. “He is mine. You’ve had your fun, now get on with it.”

  Ipid’s eyes bounced between them in confusion. Clearly, they had some deeper understanding, but he could not imagine what it could be.

  “As you wish, my lady,” the ambassador interrupted his thoughts with a patient smile. “But certain things must be understood. Lord Chancellor, when I said that I had been sent to help you, that did not mean you could simply pull out your cock and tell me to bend over. Even the lowest whore has certain protocols, and I am no low whore. I am like a fine lady who you must ply with drink and conversation. You must make me feel beautiful and loved before I will give you access to my most prized assets. As you should know, nothing in this world is free, least of all me.” He paused and stared. There was no humor in his eyes. “Now, Chancellor Kavich would always start with the finest feast . . .”

  “Chancellor Kavich is dead.”

  “And no one mourns him more than I. He was a man I could work with. He had secrets. It meant that he knew the danger of secrets. He knew how powerful and volatile they could be. He knew how to handle them.” The ambassador paused, wiped his brow, and gathered himself.

  “I mean the girls were not so young as to be outside their bloom,” he continued casually, “but they were certainly young. Daughters of the household staff usually. He had taken the flowers of most of the attractive ones. The families were compensated. The ones who bore children were set up with pliable husbands. The girls didn’t protest per se, and his wife sometimes joined him, so there was no leverage there. But still, it was not exactly what the Order had in mind. He knew, of course, that I would never use the information against him, but the simple fact that I knew put our relationship on a safe footing. It is the basis upon which all these . . . slippery relationships are built.” The ambassador licked his lips, drained his brandy, and reached the cup back toward Eia. She frowned but rose to refill it.

  Despite his annoyance, Ipid was silently fascinated – he never would have guessed it from Kavich, but now that he thought about it, there had been some awkward moments with members of his household.

  “Widowers are the worst,” Ambassador an’ Pmalatir started again when his cup and been filled and sampled. “Even if they have scandalous tastes, no one cares. Almost as bad are men with no vices. So absolute anathema is a widower without serious vice. I can barely even understand that. I can certainly not use it. The whole point of being powerful is to use that power to fulfill the depraved needs that drove you to claim power in the first place. Those in power are certainly not doing it out of some desire to make the world better. They are doing it so that they can fuck and steal and drink and spend. It is the great irony. The very reason they want power is what will cause them to lose it. And as a person who knows all the secrets, it gives me tremendous leverage over those powerful people. Now, that may sound wonderful, and it is, but it is also dangerous to the extreme.”

  “I am a busy man, ambassador.” Ipid looked at the tall clock in the corner, watching the precious seconds slipping by as the ambassador prattled.

  “He is trying to make you understand why he didn’t come to you directly,” Eia supplied.

  “Because I am too clean? Because he can’t blackmail me? You know what happens when you try to blackmail tyrants, don’t you? First off, it doesn’t work. I don’t need the people to like me. If you spread rumors that I ate babies for my breakfast, it would not change a thing. Then the tyrant has you thrown in a cell so that everyone else knows not to try it.”

  “And that only makes it worse,” the ambassador whined. “Even your son is unavailable – if I had something on him, which I don’t. I mean, who has ever heard of a rich boy at university who isn’t dipping his stick in every honey pot he can find? All that money, and not a single bastard. How is that even possible? But, even if I found out he was fucking the Xi Valati, it wouldn’t matter. His own father practically named him as one of the Exiles. There is . . . .”

  “Leave Dasen out of this,” Ipid growled and pounded his hand on the table. “I told you, I don’t care about your schemes. You cannot blackmail me. The only thing you can do is piss me off!” His voice rose to a yell. “Now, tell me what you told Eia last night.”

  Ambassador an’ Pmalatir did not even flinch at Ipid’s anger. He leaned forward and stared.

  “Listen to him,” Eia urged. “This is important.”

  “I will tell you a story,” Ambassador an’ Pmalatir started. He drew a long breath. Ipid fell back into his chair, exasperated. It was clear his only option was to listen. “When I first arrived in the Kingdoms, there was a woman who I wanted very much to bed. By the Order, she was bea
utiful. I could not get her out of my head, and I could not get her to even look in my direction. So it was in desperation that I came up with my first evil scheme. Through various methods I have since perfected, I learned that this woman was having her own desires fulfilled by her best friend. It was better than I ever could have imagined. I now had not one, but two, women in my control, and I enjoyed them greatly. That is until I received a visit from a man I did not know, a rival as it turned out of the lady’s husband. I was growing tired of my conquest by then – and they hated me in any case – so when he offered me other rewards in exchange for my information, I agreed. The problem was that I had no control of this man, and he proceeded to destroy the lady and her husband. He showed them not the slightest mercy. He took everything from them. The husband resigned his post. They lost all their contacts and money. The friend went into exile. And, eventually, the lady went insane. She killed herself and their children.”

  “Lord Mondfor,” Ipid breathed. “You did that?”

  “No,” the ambassador left no room for doubt. “The man I sold the information to did it. I simply wanted to fuck a beautiful woman. He wanted to destroy a family. I did not do it, but it was my mistake that allowed it to happen. I did not control the situation, you see. But I learned. I learned what tremendous power I had, but what was more important, I learned that I had to control that power. I learned that I had to have leverage over every person I worked with. I had to have a way to control what they did with the information I provided. If I did not have that leverage, I could not work with them. I call it ‘assured mutual defamation.’ It is the basis upon which my entire world is built. Do you understand now why I hesitated speak with you directly?”

  “You terrify him,” Eia supplied when Ipid failed to answer. “Dealing in scandal is the most dangerous profession in the world. If he does not control how his information is used, it can lead to horrible outcomes. Many men would do anything to bury their secrets. Others would use those secrets to bury their rivals – not just discredit them, destroy them. Vontel is lucky that woman killed herself rather than him.”

  “Though that was terrible enough,” the ambassador added solemnly. “Especially the children. The Order take me, I never understood that.”

  Eia looked at him with sympathy. “He fears that something like that may happen again, that you may use the information you gather in a way that will endanger him or other innocents.”

  “But you know me better than that,” Ipid sputtered. “You know I would never . . . .”

  “After the way you have acted today? You are under great stress, my dear. Your judgment is clouded by the flurry of your concerns. Both Vontel and I worry what you might do when you hear the information he has gathered.”

  “And that is why you have withheld it? Because you think I will fly off the handle and do something crazy?”

  Eia looked at Ambassador an’ Pmalatir. Secret communication flowed between them. “I did,” Eia eventually admitted. “I realize now that I have probably only made things worse, but I was trying to find a time when you could hear this without making a rash decision that you would regret.”

  “Alright,” Ipid let out a long breath. “I understand.” So it was not a conspiracy, but they had something. And whoever it was must be important, must be close to him for them to be protecting him. His anger spiked at the very thought. “But I agree to nothing. I am Chancellor. I will do what is required to protect these Kingdoms. I will place no restrictions on that duty. Now, tell me who the traitor is, or I will find some other way to loosen your tongue.”

  Eia sighed, sat back in her chair, then gestured across to the ambassador. “I tried. Tell him.”

  Ambassador an’ Pmalatir licked his lips. “Well, I am certainly not one who would stand long to torture, so . . . .” He took another long breath. “Somewhat conveniently, my informants scattered when the invaders arrived. It took me awhile to find them, but most of them remain in their places around the officials who survived the Darthur attack.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Very well. Lord Allard Stully.”

  “What about him?” Ipid was forced to ask. It was certainly not the name he expected.

  The ambassador looked to Eia. She motioned him to continue. “He is organizing in Aylesford. He has assembled a number of members of parliament, has contacted most of the governors you displaced, and is planning to start various uprisings to disrupt your efforts to help the invaders. He is working to establish a network of people who are angry but will do as he says. He plans to coordinate their efforts, probably small to start – the fly to the giant. But it will grow and consolidate under his command. He knows you can only respond with brute force, which will only make him stronger. Eventually, you will have converted every citizen of the Kingdoms to his side. You will fall, and he will be Chancellor.”

  Ipid sat back. “In Aylesford?”

  “Yes,” the ambassador answered cautiously. “He has a sizeable estate and farmlands outside the city. He went there with his family before the invaders arrived.”

  “I received reports from Aylesford this morning. There was no word of dissent among the estates around the city. The local land owners have given everything that has been asked.”

  “I’m sorry, Lord Chancellor, but would you expect anything different? Lord Stully is no fool. He knows that his best cover is to do exactly as he is told.”

  “So how do you know he is organizing dissent?”

  “His butler had a liaison with my valet. The order advisor he uses for political advice has a penchant for gambling and the debts to go along with it. I have paid to support the bastard children of three of his maids and cooks. His stable master killed a man in a fight in Lethbridge twenty years ago. . . .”

  “I see,” Ipid conceded. “So you are confident in your information.”

  “Lord Stully has hosted twenty-eight members of parliament and six former governors since he arrived in Aylesford. He has sent riders to every city. He has drawn up contracts to entice those who are swayed by money. And he sent couriers to me seeking advice on those who are not.”

  “And he is ready to act?”

  “He is supporting and building resistance in almost every city. Dorington is the exception. But he is working to sway Bairn.”

  Ipid thought. For thirty minutes, he asked questions, gathered information, and considered. Next to him, Eia chewed her fingers, watching nervously, clearly waiting for the explosion, waiting for him to order Lord Stully arrested or simply killed. Certainly, it would have fit. The man was a traitor, was conspiring to overthrow the Chancellor, to see his efforts fail. But Ipid knew that resistance was coming. As Jon had said, this was as good as it could get. Soon, people would grow hungry. The invaders would leave. Anger would replace fear. The rebellion was coming with our without Lord Stully to lead it.

  The key was in the question that Jon had asked earlier. An hour ago, Ipid had no idea who would lead the dissent. Now, he had a name, a face, a location. He sat back in his chair. “We only have one option.” He looked at Eia then Ambassador an’ Pmalatir. They glanced at each other. “I must meet with Allard Stully. Ambassador, I assume you can make the arrangements?”

  “What?” Eia asked. “Meet with him?”

  “Yes,” Ipid answered with a small smile. It was his turn to be smug. “I will meet with Lord Stully and make an agreement.”

  “You’re not going to have him killed?”

  “Of course not. He is exactly what we need.”

  “But he’s organizing resistance to your rule. He plans to disrupt the transport of goods to the Darthur. He wants to start uprisings in the cities. He wants farmers to smuggle out their food before you can claim it. You heard all this from Ambassador an’ Pmalatir. You can’t doubt his sources.”

  Ipid watched Eia. Was she, for some reason, pushing too hard after having been terrified of his overreaction? “Those things will happen with or without Allard Stully. But that’s not what he want
s. He wants to be Chancellor, and I will give him that gladly if he gives me what I want in return.”

  “And what is that?” Ambassador an’ Pmalatir asked.

  “Time,” Ipid answered. “All I ask for is time.”

  Chapter 33

  The 32nd Day of Summer

  Whereas Wildern was a single city divided by a river, Gorin was two cities separated by a border that happened to be a river. Gorin East, on the Liandrin side, was by far the larger. It stretched down the backside of a hundred foot granite cliff that stood out like a knuckle, forcing even the mighty Alta to divert around it. Blocked by that face of white granite, the city was visible from the Orm only as a great fortress perched atop the hill and the requisite docks, warehouses, inns, and boarding houses that clung to the river on either side. Hidden behind the sparkling cliff was a wealthy trade city known for the bright colors of the tile roofs that issued down the side of the hill in a meandering zag. It was by no means the largest city in Liandria, but it was one of the wealthiest. A major point for trade, surrounded by fertile land, protected from the river’s tantrums, it was strong and prosperous and beautiful.

  On the other side of the Alta, just below the muddy flats where the Orm joined it, was Gorin West. Set on a low, open plain that was ideally suited for the ravages of floods and invading armies, Gorin West had been destroyed by one or the other with such regularity throughout its history that it now stood as a monument to human obstinance. Yet even the most pigheaded have a limit to their intractability. Gorin West was no exception. Though it continued to exist and even expand, there was almost nothing permanent about it. A small, squat block of a fortress on its only hill served as its administrative center. Arrayed around it were the city’s few established structures: the houses of the wealthy, the commerce and financial districts, and the temple. The rest of it was a slapdash of shanty buildings, quickly constructed and easily abandoned. Surrounded by marshes, it was little more than a city of teamsters, of warehouses, docks, wagons, and the people who worked them. Goods arrived from the southern Kingdoms, were loaded on ships, and transported up either the Orm or Alta. Taxes were levied, fees paid, crews hired, and the goods moved on, leaving only the slightest portion of their value behind in the city that had helped them on their way. Like the urchin boy given a slip of copper to fetch a hired coach, so was Gorin West: small, ragged, stinking, and happy to be of service.